To think this policy would be a vote-winner?

[LifeofBrienne]

A law that every public sector helpline, and all companies above a certain size must have a 'press 1 for us to call you back' option. And also have the 'you are number x in the queue' information when you are on hold.

Currently on hold to HMRC for 40 mins so far and I can't concentrate on doing anything else properly. Every time the music stops for the 'thank you for waiting' message I slightly jump just in case it's someone actually answering the phone.

only if they actually DO though. Also I'd add in that you get a named contact and that person is responsible for making sure any notes of your case / complaint etc are accurately recorded if they are not available on a 2nd call. Even more clever - the phone system could route you to that specific person on a 2nd/3rd call, if they were in that day. And built in penalties if they don't get back to you within X time.

My surgery has an incredible "call you back option".
Love it. But I do have a surgery that seems above par compared to most.

I don't agree. I don't want to be called back - that is a nuisance as I will have moved on to another task, which might be awkward to interrupt. There should be sufficient people to answer phones so a 5 min task can actually take 5 mins. The amount of people's time wasted is disgraceful.

I'd rather see a hefty fine for a call not being picked up within 2 mins. The sort of fines that mount up into more than the cost of hiring enough people to answer the phone. People need jobs. Phones need answering. Match this up!

I remember when you could phone places up 40 years ago and the phone would be answered.

Yanbu. Especially HMRC. Last year I needed to speak to them. They told me it was urgent. My phone automatically cuts off after 2 hours. Without failing would get through to someone at the 1 hour 50 minute mark. Just pass security. Then the phone would hang up.

I spent the whole day calling and losing the call. Finally sorted after 6 hours!! Yes that is a ridiculous thing to do. But I didn't want to pay a fine because I hadn't been able to get through!

I don’t want to be called back, but I do appreciate being told where I am in the queue. HMRC are particularly bad. In a former life as Head of Finance, the Finance Director and I kept a copy of War and Peace on a shelf in our office: picking up War and Peace and opening it to read was silent indication that we were about to phone HMRC.

I think the hold music makes a big difference as well. I bought a kitchen from IKEA during lockdown and spent quite a while holding on the phone on several occasions for their customer services team, listening to ABBA’s entire back catalogue - I actually got to the point where I didn’t mind holding at all, I’d pour myself a drink and just enjoy the groove!

Yes to mandatory and accurate 'x number in the queue' information and yes to good/interesting/tolerable music choice whilst on hold. Some of it seems designed to make you lose the will to live. Also there should be an option to skip all the 'have you tried looking on the website' type messages.

I work in public sector in a department that has a phone line. We don't even have the ability to accurately report on the number of calls each employee has answered so such changes would involved huge infrastructure changes which come at a cost.

I would rather that cost be spent on more employees to answer the calls in the first place

Having a named contact is laughably unfeasible. If you’ve ever been part of those sort of environments you’ll see the ratios of call centre staff to customers and how it makes the impossible. There’s zero chance of that ever happening.

I bought a washing machine from AO a few months ago. I liked their random 90s hold music - one of the songs was Ace of Base.